Objective  To describe the clinical outcomes of femtosecond laser-assisted penetrating keratoplasty. Methods  This retrospective surgical case series consisted of 16 eyes from 16 patients who were treated with VisuMax femtosecond laser-assisted penetrating keratoplasty at Nanjing General Hospital of Nanjing Militory Command PLA. A 500 kHz VisuMax femtosecond laser was used to perform corneal cuts with a 90° side cut angle on both donor and recipient corneas. The outcome measures were the uncorrected visual acuity （UCVA）， best corrected visual acuity （BCVA）， astigmatism， corneal thickness and endothelial density count. The mean follow-up was 9.6±5.6 months. Results  All eyes were successfully treated. The mean UCVA increased from LP-0.15 to HM-0.5， and the mean BCVA increased from LP-0.3 to HM-0.8. The mean astigmatism was 2.91±2.57 D， the mean central corneal thickness was 554.9±23.3 µm and the mean endothelial cell density was 2 433±322 cell/mm2. Conclusion  This study shows that VisuMax femtosecond laser-assisted penetrating keratoplasty provides a rapid visual improvement and reduces astigmatism due to precise graft-host alignment and visual acuity improves in varying degrees postoperatively.